Conventional fuel-saving management systems for use in, for example, trucks or other motor vehicles, would be broadly divisible into two major types. In one type, a vehicle-mounted analyzer stores vehicle speed, engine speed, fuel flow rate, and other data into a memory in accordance with signals from various sensors. After the end of driving, the driver, the vehicle travel supervisor, or the like further stores the memory-stored data onto a storage medium such as a memory card. The driving data, after being stored onto the storage medium such as a memory card, is input to a vehicle owner/user company's data analyzer provided at the vehicle owner/user company or the manufacturer of the vehicle, and the driving state of the vehicle is analyzed in detail using the data.
The vehicle travel supervisor checks the detailed analyses against previously set warning values of the vehicle speed, engine speed, fuel flow rate, and the like. Thus, the vehicle travel supervisor can obtain information on the way the driver usually drives, and the driver can know his/her own driving state by objective data analyses and thus makes endeavors to drive more safely and more economically (refer to Patent Documents 1 and 2). This conventional type of system, however, has a problem in that since the introduction of the vehicle owner/user company's data analyzer requires a great deal of cost, the system is difficult for small-scale enterprises to adopt.
The other conventional type of fuel-saving management system is, so to speak, a simplified fuel-saving management system. In this conventional type of system, a vehicle-mounted analyzer monitors vehicle speed, engine speed, and other factors, and if the respective predetermined warning values are exceeded, the analyzer warns the driver by a buzzer or a dummy voice (hereinafter, also referred to as a buzzer or the like). Therefore, the driver can immediately know his/her own driving state in the form of a warning and immediately correct the way he/she is driving.
Also, if the predetermined warning values are exceeded, the occurrence time of that event and the count of the warnings issued at up to that time are stored into a memory. In addition, when necessary, the appropriate vehicle travel supervisor can know the occurrence time and the count of the past warnings via a vehicle owner/user company's data analyzer provided at the vehicle owner/user company or the manufacturer of the vehicle, thus manage fuel saving, and provide associated assistance to the driver in a certain range (refer to Patent Documents 3 and 4). Furthermore, this conventional type of simplified fuel-saving management system can also be constructed only of a vehicle-mounted analyzer, and is low enough in cost, even for small-scale enterprises to adopt, and has much in anticipation in terms of future progress.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-open No. H10-069555    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2003-115065    Patent Document 3: Japanese Utility Model Laid-open No. H04-110924    Patent Document 4: Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-087776